The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

I listened and did not speak. Achilles’ eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.

We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

I could not even see the ugliness of the deaths anymore, the brains, the shattered bones that later I would wash from my skin and hair. All I saw was his beauty, his singing limbs, the quick flickering of his feet.

He doesn’t know how to be angry with me, either. We are like damp wood that won’t light.